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You receive a "The specified file or folder name is too long" error message when you create a new folder or a new document in a document library in SharePoint Portal Server or in Windows SharePoint Services

If you are a Small Business customer, find additional troubleshooting and learning resources at the Support for Small Business site.

You find that there are limits to the lengths of folder names and file names in URLs when you do any one of the following things in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, in Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003, or in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services:

Create a new folder in a document library

Create a new document in a document library, or save an existing document in a document library by using a new name for the document

Upload a document to a document library

For example, when you try to create a new folder in a document library and the folder has a very long name, you receive the following error message:

The specified file or folder name is too long. The URL path for all files and folders must be 260 characters or less (and no more than 128 characters for any single file or folder name in the URL). Please type a shorter file or folder name.

This behavior occurs if the number of characters in the URL exceeds the maximum number of characters that is supported for URLs in SharePoint Server 2007, in SharePoint Portal Server 2003, and in Windows SharePoint Services.

To determine the length of a URL, SharePoint Server 2007, SharePoint Portal Server 2003, and Windows SharePoint Services convert the string in the URL to Universal Character Set (UCS) Transformation Format 16 (UTF-16) format, and then count the number of 16-bit characters in the string. A URL that contains more than 260 characters is not supported. Additionally, a URL that contains one or more of the following components is not supported:

Make sure that the names of folders and of files do not exceed the maximum lengths that are supported for URLs in SharePoint Server 2007, in SharePoint Portal Server 2003, and in Windows SharePoint Services.

For more information about character limitations for user-specified parameters in SharePoint Portal Server 2003, see the "Character limitations" topic in the "Reference" section of the Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Administrator's Guide. The Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Administrator's Guide (Administrator's Help.chm) is located in the Docs folder in the root folder of the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 CD.

For more information about long file and folder names and about characters in file names, in folders names, and in URLs in Windows SharePoint Services, see the "Upgrade considerations" topic in the "Planning" section of the Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 Administrator's Guide. To obtain the Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 Administrator's Guide, visit the following Microsoft Web site: